Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I released my recording. I went to
Italy for a bit. I moved back to Montreal (sort of). I played
numerous gigs with Jonathan Roy, “Felix”, Bud Rice, quite a few
odd-job gigs (funk music at the entrance of the Montreal CFL football
games?!), recorded with the Jason Stein Project, played a bitter/sweet gig at the
Tea Lounge with the Large Band.

FRLB at the Tea Lounge. Great turnout. Shaky performance...

I've been meeting with
Carou Johnson and 2 wonderfully inspired dancers Laurie-Anne Langis
and Vanessa Beaupré about contemporary dance/music performances for
the spring. I've also been meeting with Felix Del Tredici about a
bass trombone “concerto” we'll be working on together. The
Montreal Jazz Fest came and went. I've been asked by my good friend
Jun Umeki and his band to send one of my charts that they'll be
performing at the Yamano big band competition in Japan.

But what I've REALLY been doing is
working on this:

Along with Sami Bronowski and Dom
Mekky, I've taken to calling it a chamber opera/musical. We started
working on it in January and had gone through a lot of
PRE-rough-draft writing to find the sound and solidify the
plot/characters. We're now working on the piano reduction + vocal
score. 2 males, 2 females, and 5 speakers/amplifiers throughout the
stage. The instruments (which will be pre-recorded as a compositional
CHOICE) will be piano, bass, cello, viola, violin, french horn,
trumpet, clarinet, flute, and lots of electronics. We intend to
premiere it in Montreal sometime in 2013 (I think Spring?). We're
basically stealing from Stephen Sondheim, minus dialogue, writing in
a contemporary singing style (not operatic or Broadway, more
folk-like), and no dance/choreography. It's everything I want music
theatre to be, which is almost always ruined for me by one of these
elements. Now that it's public, we actually have to go through with it...

NOTABLE LISTENING/READING/THOUGHTS

LIVE

Joe Henry and Lisa Hannigan in Montreal
on June 11th.

Kneebody in Montreal on July 1st.

Aaron Goldberg, Rick Rosato, and Obed
Calvaire in Montreal on July 4th.

BOOKS

Re-reading Jonathan Franzen's “Freedom”

Jean
Chrétien's “My Years as Prime Minister”

RECORDED

Stephen
Sondheim - “Passion”

Jeremy
Denk - “Ligeti/Beethoven”

Mark
Guiliana - “Beat Music”

Brad
Mehldau Trio - “Ode”

Sam
Amidon - “I See The Sign”

John
Adams - “Son of Chamber Symphony”

Norah
Jones - “Little Broken Hearts”

Béla
Bartók - “Piano Concerto #1”

Nico
Muhly - “Seeing is Believing”

As
the whole Emily White – NPR / David Lowery article went viral, I
manically got back into my mental debate about copyright/recorded
music and our culture. Especially after having released something I'm
finally proud of (for now...) I wonder what, in the context of my
music making, all of this means. I've seen some REALLY poor
arguments on both sides of the debate. Robert Levine is now my go-to
guy for all things concerning copyright law, understanding how we got
into this mess, and how we can get out. Anyone who's spent time with
me knows I've been following this for a while now.

On
that note, my record is still here. Or on Itunes if you feel like
giving Apple more of your money, and less to me. Or on
Spotify/Bandcamp to stream if that's how you roll. I made the choice
for them to be there, listen away! Thanks to all of you who have bought and listened to the album, and thank you all for the kind words!!!